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They say you only have two seconds to make a first impression. Two seconds. Hope you were ready when that comes and goes in a blink. But thankfully we can work with the three plus seconds afterward. Our connections with people don’t have to end once we’ve parted ways. Today I’m focusing on what we can do after we’ve said goodbye to positively reinforce a positive first impression or to try to create a positive image from maybe a not so great first impression.

I met a wonderful lady yesterday named Barbara Donahue who works in the sports production industry (her interview will be posted soon!) and she gave me some great tips. It was such a fun night and it was so nice of her to share some of her pearls of wisdom with me.

So first and foremost, write a thank you note after a gift, a meeting with someone who is doing you a favor, or if you just feeling like sending a note of appreciation in general. A few words can do wonders and it says a lot that you took the time to think of them after the fact. And thank you notes are a dime a dozen these days. Be the dime.

I’m off to write a few thank you notes myself this morning. Make it a habit for yourself so that it naturally becomes part of the process of special meetings, thoughtful gifts, and the like. People might even start giving you thank you notes as presents if they know you write thank you notes (has this only happened to me?) of which you can then write a thank you note with the thank you notes you were given. Ok, now it’s getting ridiculous. But you get my point hopefully.